Journal of Information Science
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Information Science in 2003: A Critique
Sheila Webber
Journal of Information Science 2003; 29; 311
DOI: 10.1177/01655515030294007
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Information science in 2003:
a critique
Sheila Webber*
Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield,
Sheffield, UK
Abstract.
The author aims to review the status of information science
(IS) as a discipline, with particular focus on the UK. A
consideration of the discipline begins by comparing
definitions of IS. Two visions of the impact of IS are
presented to illustrate a key problem area addressed by the
discipline. Indicators of a discipline are summarized and
Biglan’s categorization of disciplines is explained. The
author provides a critique of opinions on the nature of IS
as a discipline, using Biglan’s categories as a framework.
The author contrasts the views of those who see the
discipline as problematically fragmented and those who
envision a discipline of fruitfully interlinked specialisms.
This section of the paper concludes by considering
disciplinary boundaries and the international scope of the
discipline. The last section of the paper reviews the state of
IS in the UK, drawing on evidence and on personal
experience. Factors considered are: evidence of networks
and communities of practice; the name and standing of
academic departments and courses; artefacts and personal
identification. The author concludes by identifying
particular challenges for IS in the UK and indicates areas
for research.
original aim was to highlight some current issues in
UK IS. However, this remit raised embedded questions:
is IS still alive as a discipline in the UK? This question
is sharpened by the demise of its professional association (the Institute of Information Scientists, IIS) in
2002. Further, is IS a discipline at all? This is a
question that has been posed since the birth of IS. It
seemed pointless to reflect on the status of IS in the UK
without examining the discipline itself more closely.
The paper therefore starts with a review of definitions of IS (with particular emphasis on those from the
UK). It briefly reviews indicators of a discipline, and
goes on to summarize differences that have been
perceived in different kinds of disciplines (using the
categorization of hard/soft and pure/applied disciplines). IS, and views of information scientists, are
positioned in relation to these categories. Finally, an
analysis is provided of the state of the discipline in the
UK. This draws upon arguments earlier in the paper,
and, more subjectively, the author’s own experience as
a professionally active information scientist, heavily
involved in IIS activities at central and branch level,
are drawn upon.
2. Definitions and vision
2.1. Definition
1. Introduction
This article discusses information science (IS) and its
status as a discipline, particularly in the UK. The
Correspondence to: S. Webber, Department of Information
Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
This section is concerned with definitions of IS and the
vision that seems to lie behind these definitions. It
should be noted that both ‘information’ and ‘science’
are problematic words. The use of the word ‘science’
was natural enough for the founders of IS, concerned
about the knowledge base of science and the needs of
the scientific researcher [1]. There may be discomfort,
however, with the use of the word ‘science’ in
connection with a discipline which has an increasingly well developed soft side, and certainly there has
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Information science in 2003
been debate as to whether it is a truly a science (as
noted below). Machlup and Mansfield [2] condemn the
‘snobbism or bigotry’ [2, p. 12] which would withhold
the appelation ‘science’ from applied fields of study
and are openly disdainful of those who would waste
time in arguing whether a particular discipline was a
‘real’ science. Still, one might lament the absence in
English of an equivalent of ‘Wissenschaft’ which
would not designate a field as being in the scientific
and technical area.
There has been much discussion of the meaning of
‘information’, probing alternative interpretations of the
word. When one comes to consider the scope and
boundaries of the discipline, the manner in which
‘information’ has been interpreted is of obvious
importance. If one agrees with Stonier’s [3, p. 258]
assertion that ‘information, like matter and energy, is a
basic property of the universe’, one is bound to
produce a different definition of IS from someone
who defines information in terms of documents.
However, a detailed discussion of the possible meanings of ‘information’ is outside the scope of this article,
and readers are referred to authors such as Machlup [4],
Buckland [5] and Capurro and Hjørland [6]. This
article is focused on the two words ‘information
science’ used together as a name for the discipline,
and differences in interpreting ‘information’ will
emerge through differing definitions of IS and differing
perspectives on research problems and methods. There
are many of these and rather than attempting a
systematic analysis, I will quote some characteristic
definitions, and highlight areas of consensus and
divergence. Firstly, Meadows, writing in 1987, [1, p. 1]
cites Borko’s definition of IS as one which would
‘receive widespread assent’ namely:
It is an interdisciplinary science that investigates the
properties and behaviour of information, the forces that
govern the flow and use of information, and the techniques, both manual and mechanical, of processing
information for optimal storage, retrieval and dissemination.
* In 2001 the American Society for Information Science
(ASIS) became the American Society for Information Science
and Technology (ASIST) and the Journal of the American
Society for Information Science (JASIS) became the Journal of
the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). The current form of the names will be used in
this paper, except where there would be ambiguity in using
the later form of the name.
{Or on pp. 368–369 ‘the scientific study of the communication of information in society’ (my italics).
312
The last revision of the Institute of Information
Scientists Criteria for Information Science (used in
course accreditation [7, p. 3]) starts with a statement
that ‘The science and management of information
require an understanding of the interactions involved
in generation, transmission and receipt.’ Five areas
that ‘make an essential contribution to the development of that understanding’ are then outlined (see
Table 1).
These areas seem to fit reasonably well with the
concerns of IS (and of the IIS’ sister association, (the
American Society of Information Science and Technology, ASIST)* described by Buckland and Liu [8,
p. 385], namely
the representation, storage, transmission, selection (retrieval, filtering), and the use of messages, where documents
and messages are created for use by humans.
In both descriptions one may identify stages in
information’s life cycle, and a focus on the way in
which information is being used by people: the latter is
not explicitly present in the earlier Borko definition.
The IIS criteria provided a reference point when
making decisions on admitting members to the IIS,
but also for course accreditation, and the broad
category E in the Criteria may be seen in that context.
However, as noted above, all areas were designated by
the IIS as ‘essential’, and category D (Information
environment and policy) implies a set of problems
outside (or at least not explicitly within) the scope of
the Borko and Buckland and Liu descriptions. The IIS
category D seems to accommodate areas of current
interest to information scientists internationally, such
as social informatics.
Defining IS in a social context is not new, and a
decade before this revision of the Criteria, Vickery and
Vickery [9, p. 1] had identified IS as ‘the study of the
communication of information in society’.{ They
foregrounded the centrality of people in the communication process, since even where information and
communication technologies (ICTs) are involved,
these ICTs have been designed and maintained by
people; ‘communication is essentially a social act’ [9,
p. 14]. This could fit with Farradane’s identification of
IS as a cognitive science, which is ‘of course’ [10,
p. 75] a constituent part of the broader field of
communication, teaching and learning. Some writers
find the Vickerys’ definition of the field too broad.
Ingwersen [11] rejects it on the grounds that it spreads
the scope of the discipline too wide. He concurs with
previous writers in identifying IS as being concerned
with the generation, communication and utilization of
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S. WEBBER
Table 1.
IIS criteria: areas contributing to understanding [7, p. 3]
A. Information generation, communication and utilization
Scope: the processes and techniques whereby information resources are created, analysed, moderated and manipulated in order
to meet the requirements of defined user populations.
B. Information management and organizational context
Scope: the application of techniques for planning, implementing, evaluating, analysing and developing information products
and services within the context of the organization’s culture, aims and objectives. The impact of information systems on the
structures and procedures of organizations.
C. Information systems and information and communication technologies
Scope: the broad concepts and theories of information systems and information and communication technologies insofar as they
apply to the principles and practices of information management.
D. Information environment and policy
Scope: the dynamics of information in society, in (and between) nations, governments and the information and media industries.
E. Information service management
Scope: principles and techniques associated with business and institutional management, together with transferable skills of
literacy and numeracy.
information. Hjørland and Albrechtsen [12], in putting
forward their domain-analysis paradigm for IS (looking at information problems in the context of different
subject domains and discourse communities), also
seem to define IS more narrowly than the Vickerys.
Hjørland and Albrechtsen do raise interesting questions, for example in terms of investigating the extent
to which IS principles are general, or variable
according to the context in which they are experienced, but they emphasize issues of surrogates and
access points, for example saying that ‘The major
challenge for information scientists is in our opinion
the need to contribute value added information to
records in electronic information systems’ [12, p. 417;
13, p. 116].
White and McCain [14] also criticize what they see
as overgeneral delineations of IS. They characterize IS
as focusing on the study of communication between
people and the literatures that are surrogates for
people. Explicitly excluded from IS are studies of
communication between people, which are seen as
the province of other disciplines. White and McCain
put forward evidence about key IS authors from their
author cocitation analysis to support this view.
However, it could be said that this is not neutral
data, in that, of the 12 journals which are analysed in
order to define IS, four are specifically concerned
with library automation, a choice which, five years on
and from the other side of the Atlantic ocean, seems
in need of considerably more justification than is
given. Cronin [15] also comments on White and
McCain’s restrictions in setting the boundaries of
the field.
By no means all the UK descriptions and definitions
of IS encompass the social dimension to the extent of
that of Vickery and Vickery. However, one might trace
back to IIS’ roots a more holistic envisioning of the
discipline than was the case in the USA. The Royal
Society’s 1946 Empire Scientific Conference, and the
1948 Royal Society Scientific Conference, which are
seen as milestones in the evolution of UK IS, took place
in a Britain which was exploring a new world after
the physical, social and economic impact of the
Second World War. While the focus was on scientific
information (social scientists were excluded from the
1948 conference [16]), the relevance of scientific
information to the economy was not just perceived by
the scientists, but by industry and the Government.
Wakeford [17] cites Herbert Morrison’s announcement
concerning the 1948 conference that he had ‘set up
a scientific information panel to advise how the
Government can best serve industry by providing
scientific and technical material promptly and in a
form easily assimilated.’ Some research into scientists’
information-seeking behaviour was carried out
before the conference, and further research was
recommended [16]. Given the increased attention
being given to the history of IS [8, pp. 400–401; 18],
further exploration of the impact of the social and
economic context in the UK would be interesting
(Warner [19] provides some discussion in this area).
Saracevic [20] rejects the idea that there could be a
‘proper’ definition of IS, and contends that IS is
‘defined by the problems it has addressed and the
methods it has used for their solutions over time’ [20,
p. 1051]. He proposes that one may judge the
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progress of the field by the extent to which, and the
methods with which, it is tackling these problems.
The diversity of these methods has in itself been a
major cause of debate, leading some to declare that
diversity of research problems indicates such a lack
of cohesion that IS cannot be called a discipline at
all. This issue of research approach and the nature of
a discipline is addressed in Section 3 of this article.
In the next section I move onto the problems to be
addressed, by identifying one of the enduring visions
of IS.
2.2. Visions of the impact of IS
The nature of a discipline, and of the research
problems it aims to tackle, may be perceived in its
visions as well as in its definition. Buckland and Liu
observe that ‘Envisioning the future has also been
popular in IS’ [8, p. 390]. Of the possible visions, two
are selected here: one from 1939 and one from 2002,
both focusing on the research worker. Although 60
years apart and geographically separated, they seem to
me to have strong similarities. There are also,
incidentally, elements that I have also encountered
in many information producers’ advertising blurbs
over the last 20 years. Firstly the 1939 vision of
Bernal, a Professor of Physics and Fellow of the Royal
Society:
The kind of organization we wish to aim at is one where all
relevant information should be available to each research
worker and in amplitude in proportion to its degree of
relevance. Further, that not only should the information be
available, but that it should be to a large extent put at the
disposal of the research worker without his having to take
any special steps to get hold of it [22, p. 169].
In these sentences, Bernal captures what many would
still recognize as core concerns of IS. Also noteworthy
is Bernal’s detailed description of the variety of types
of information and information channels that are
useful, such as: meeting announcements, research
reviews aimed at specialists and non-specialists,
journal articles, personal communication (particularly
within and between workplaces) and field notes. His is
not a restricted view of information and communication. Sixty-three years later, the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung produced a position
* Users want easy and quick access to relevant information,
independent of time and place. They want to be able to
integrate the information they require, tailored to their needs,
into their own working and learning environment.
314
paper on the future of scientific information [22]. This
starts with a vision (explicitly titled so) of a research
worker. This time it’s a woman. On getting to work, she
can call up internal data about her experiments,
receive updates trawled from commercial databases
and the net, draw a chemical structure on the wallmounted screen and let the system go off and find
relevant documents and so forth. ‘All this is possible!’
the report tells us, although it is evidently going to
require some further work. The mission is to tailor
information products to users’ needs, and make them
available to all (‘Wissenschaftliche Information für
jedermann’ [22, p. 7], ‘Die Nutzerinnen und Nutzer
wünschen sich den ungehinderten und schnellen
Zugriff auf relevante wissenschaftliche Information,
unabhängig von Zeit und Ort. Sie wollen die benötigte
Information bedarfsgerecht aufbereitet und kontextbezogen in ihre eigene Lern- und Arbeitsumgebung
einbeziehen können’ [22, p. 1].* The document goes
on to make proposals about standards, scientific
publishing, portals, infrastructure, and the need for
information literate employees.
There are differences here: the recent document
stresses the need to provide access to scientific and
technical information for all citizens, including those
in education and those running small businesses: it is
not just for scientists. In this sense it is a broader
vision. However, it focuses on distribution of electronic information, neglecting the social side of information exchange of which Bernal is strongly aware (and it
is thus not atypical of a twenty-first century government document on information). However, there are
certainly strong similarities in vision, and one could
also observe that, although technology has enabled less
cumbersome solutions than those which Bernal proposes in 1939 (much talk of photolithography, mailing
and filing), it is evidently a vision which has not yet
been fully achieved.
Wersig [23] identified the main objective for IS as
being ‘to help people (or broader: actors) being
confused by the situation of knowledge usage’ [23, p.
233] and the enduring vision outlined above is of
people having achieved a state of unconfusion: implying both technical and social solutions. The information scientist has become invisible, but his or her
works are manifest in the vision: in producing systems
and interfaces, in mediating content, in educating the
researcher for information literacy, in devising technical standards, in researching information behaviour
and so forth. To my mind, it is a vision which fits better
with the less narrowly focused definitions of IS.
Buckland [24], writing in the 50th anniversary year of
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S. WEBBER
JASIS, notes, and welcomes, the increasing complexity
of the IS landscape [24, p. 974]. To define the
discipline too narrowly could be to stunt its growth.
3. Disciplinarity: the nature of the discipline
scientists should be producing handbooks applying IS
to other knowledge domains. I will tackle first, and in
most detail, the issue of the nature of the research
problems that IS is addressing, and IS’ theoretical base. I
will then return to the indicators listed above, and
discuss them in relation to the UK situation.
3.1. Indicators of a discipline
A discipline provides a context for research, the
intellectual background which helps to determine
what research methods are used and how research
problems are identified. It affects who you discuss your
subject with, which in turn affects the solutions you
adopt. Newell describes it neatly as ‘an interreading
population of scientists’ [25, p. 104]. Most obviously, a
discipline requires a knowledge base, or, returning to
Saracevic [20], a distinctive set of research problems
and methodologies. A number of outward and visible
signs of disciplines have been identified. Becher and
Trowler [26] review some of the indicators of a
discipline, which might include:
. the existence of academic departments, and their
place within the structure of the university;
. graduate students;
. the degree to which an international community
has emerged;
. the existence of professional associations and
journals;
. identification of self with the discipline (e.g. ‘I’m a
chemist’);
. idols and artefacts which express allegiance to the
discipline and its heroes;
. language.
As will be discussed, some IS authors also state that
IS must develop home-grown theory before it can claim
to be a discipline. Heilprin [27] proposes that there
must be a strong interactive relationship between the
academic research community of the science of
information and library practitioners if both are to
thrive. Schrader [28] sees consensus on education for
library science and IS as a key indicator of a strong
discipline, and cites Debons (writing in 1974), who
hoped for progress after two decades (i.e. in the mid1990s) when the current crop of graduates had risen to
leadership positions ‘They are the ones who will
provide the synthesis necessary to approach
order [within the IS field]’ [28, p. 246].
Publications are seen as indicators of impact and
development. White [29] yearns for an IS book that
would make a good Christmas present for one’s relatives.
Hjørland and Albrechtsen [12] feel that information
3.2. Hard, soft, pure and applied
This section starts by considering disciplines using the
categorization developed by Biglan of hard, soft,
applied and pure. It proceeds to consider how IS has
been, or could be, positioned within these categories.
Becher [30] stresses that these categorizations mask
complexity, and he adds further caveats in the second
edition of his work on academic disciplines [26],
noting in particular the importance of social factors in
the shaping of a discipline. However, the categorizations do provide a rough framework for discussion of
disciplinarity, and avoid the simple opposition of
science vs social science, or positivist vs cognitive.
Becher and Trowler [26] note that Biglan distinguishes
between hard and soft disciplines depending on the
extent to which a paradigm exists (i.e. a disciplinary
consensus as regards theories, values etc.), and
between pure and applied depending on the extent to
which there is a concern about application. Table 2
identifies characteristics of the four categories: hardpure, soft-pure, hard-applied, soft-applied. It is
derived from Becher’s [30, pp. 12–16] narrative, and
Becher and Trowler’s [26, p. 36] tabular, review of key
authors’ perspectives on the categories. Comments in
square brackets are the author’s own extrapolations
from these reviews.
It can be noted that the hard/soft categorizations
resemble the ‘scientific’ (hard) and ‘illuminative’ (soft)
paradigms which Ford [31] identifies from the works of
authors such as Elton, Olaison, Entwistle, Marton and
Cronbach.
The Biglan framework is useful in enabling one to
see the discipline of IS taking its place in the spectrum
of disciplines. There is a tendency for IS writers to
discuss the divergent nature of the field, or its lack of
original theory, as if these were issues unique to IS. By
relating discussion of IS problems and theory to the
Biglan framework, as the author will proceed to do, it
is contended that one can sideline questions such as ‘is
IS a real science?’ and ‘shouldn’t we be worrying about
not having our own grand unifying theory?’ with a
good conscience, in order to concentrate on more
important issues.
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Information science in 2003
Table 2.
Characteristics of hard/soft/pure/applied disciplines [30, pp. 12–16; 26, p. 36]
Growth of discipline
Nature of domain
Predictability of which
problems should be
solved next
New knowledge
Research approach
Examples
Hard pure
Soft pure
Steady, cumulative,
linear
Recursive, reiterative
Not necessarily
cumulative, may build
on cumulative
knowledge
Draws on hard
Impersonal, value free. Overtly value-laden
Contextual imperatives: Contextual associations: knowledge domain,
loosely knit clusters of applied to practical
each new piece of
problem
knowledge has its place ideas
in the picture
Strong
Manner in which new
[Less predictable, may
issues and questions
be driven by practical
needs]
taken up is less
predictable
‘Discoveries’
‘Interpretations’ leading Directed to practical
to enhanced insights
ends, outcomes which
are often products,
techniques: these are
judged by whether they
‘work’. Produces ‘knowhow’
Diversity of criteria, lack
Clarity of criteria for
establishing claims for of consensus on what
constitutes an authentic
new contributions
contribution
Less likely to supercede
Assimilates and
previous knowledge
supercedes what has
gone before
Heuristic, trial and error
Analysis: breaking ideas Synthesis: complexity
approaches
recognized and
into simpler
appreciated
components
Quantitative
Qualitative
Concerned with
universals
Explanations appear
strong; experiments
more controlled,
causality easier to
establish
Chemistry, Mathematics
Focused on particulars
Soft applied
Built on case law; sense
of progression not clear
Draws on soft pure
knowledge domain to
interpret and
understand situations
[Less predictable]
Aims to enhance
personal and social life.
Outcomes are often
protocols or procedures
which are judged in
pragmatic terms
[As for soft pure, but
with some quantitative
elements, driven by
outcomes]
Not altogether
quantitative, involves
an element of
qualitative judgement
Explanations appear
weaker; more variables,
more reliance on
judgement and
persuasion
History, English
Engineering, pharmacy
Of course, authors who pick holes in IS’s case to be a
discipline (for example, because they have a hard-pure
perspective), are unlikely to be swayed by categorizations arising from a piece of soft-applied research, or
analogies with other applied social sciences.
316
Hard applied
Education, law
Crowley [32, p. 1130] notes dismissively that ‘Management science/business administration has notoriously
underdeveloped intellectual foundations . . . ’ and I
have heard UK academics dismiss marketing or
management science in similar terms.
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S. WEBBER
Nevertheless, a few examples will first be introduced
from the social sciences to demonstrate that similar
discourses to those that will be described in IS take
place in other fields. These examples show authors
from other disciplines concerned about poorly developed paradigms and lack of consensus, about whether
their discipline is a real science, about whether their
graduates have recognizable skill sets, and about
whether their discipline has any theoretical basis.
Pfeffer [33], in his paper on organizational science,
reviews research that shows that disciplines with welldeveloped paradigms are advantaged in various ways
(e.g. resource allocation within institutions, availability of funding, more likelihood of performance-related
rewards). He talks about disagreement about the
direction in which his discipline should go. Pfeffer
argues the need for greater consensus in the field,
with resolution of the diversity of methodological
approaches, and commitment to a set of fundamental
questions.
Comparing historical accounts of marketing,
Enright [34] notes that a well-cited historian of the
field centrally attempts ‘to place marketing in the
realm of science’ [34, p. 448] and that definitions of
marketing abound. In a recent paper Rossiter [35]
finds it necessary to address the question of ‘what is
marketing knowledge?’, acknowledging the ongoing
questioning of the discipline. Evans et al. [36] note that
employers find it difficult to identify the unique skill
and knowledge areas that marketing students might
bring. A search of the archives of the ELMAR (marketing academics) discussion list [37] will reveal periodic
debates on whether marketing is a science, whether it
has any theory, and whether what theories it has are of
any use to practitioners.
Becher and Trowler [26] state that their research in
academic disciplines demonstrates the importance of
individual specialisms within disciplines. They identify lack of coherence (for example, in terms of a set of
concepts and method of enquiry) within many disciplines, highlighting once more that these patterns
and tensions are not unique to IS.
3.3. Do information science authors think that
information science is a discipline?
The opinions which are cited in this section were
published at different times: from midway in IS’s
history to date. It is evident, firstly, that there is still
not agreement on this point, and, secondly, that time
has not brought a decisive swing in IS’s favour. Both in
the early 1980s and at the turn of the century there are
some authors who, one feels, would like to believe IS is
a discipline, but state that it has not yet arrived at this
status. However, a hopefulness evident in the 1980s
has turned towards pessimism at the turn of the
century, at least in the UK.
In 1980, Farradane did not yet think IS was a true
science, nevertheless ‘with an adequate theoretical
base [i.e. to be developed], it offers very great future
interest’ [10, p. 79]. In the same year, Brookes states
forthrightly that IS ‘has no theoretical foundations’
[38, p. 125], but appears to see this in a positive light,
being conducive to future healthy, strong growth –
‘there is nothing to dig up! The ground is already
clear.’ Stonier, in 1991 [3, p. 263], proposes working
towards a general theory of information, which will
enable information scientists ‘to achieve feats equivalent to landing men on the moon.’
In contrast, Summers et al. [39] say that evidence
from practice-based research indicates to them that
‘the single discipline of information science, if it
ever existed, has little relevance to the needs of
practitioners’ [p. 1159] (my italics). Warner [19]
asks the question in 2001 ‘W(h)ither information
science?/!’, indicating that the sapling which Farradane and Brookes had such hopes for in 1980 has,
unnoticed by many, shot up, but become tangled in the
undergrowth of more robust disciplines and is now
weakened, perhaps beyond saving.
Reasons for denying IS the status of a discipline
notably include: rejection because it is not a real
science, rejection because it has inadequate theory (or
lack of unifying theory) and rejection because its
boundaries are disputed and unclear. Those who reject
it for not being a real science appear to be judging IS
from a hard-pure disciplinary perspective, those who
see it as formless seem to favour the sharper distinctions of the pure discipline, and those who criticize it
for lack of theory may espouse narrow definitions of IS
which mean that theories which others would see as IS
theories are placed outside IS.
The question of whether IS has enough theory has
produced conflicting answers, even by authors writing
at roughly the same point in time. For example,
Hjørland [40] says that ‘We do not have many explicit
theories in IS. Actually it is difficult to name just one
good example’ [p. 607] (although he then goes on to
describe what he calls metatheoretical assumptions
which include what others might refer to as theories).
Cornelius, writing a couple of years later, roundly
rejects the idea that information is under-theorized,
and puts forward the view that ‘the theory in information science is implicit in its practices’ [41, p. 395].
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Pettigrew and McKechnie [42] report on their
investigation into whether IS authors in six information and library journals are using theory. The authors
appear to be writing from a hard-pure perspective, in
that they affirm the need for IS to develop disciplinespecific theory in order to be recognized as a
distinctive ‘field of scientific enquiry’, and they see a
need to react to the charge that IS research is nonscientific. However, they find evidence of the use of
theory, with 34% of the articles discussing one or more
theories, 30% of which are seen as IS theories, the rest
being theories from other disciplines. Pettigrew and
Mckechnie compare their study with previous research
into theory use in IS, and note that the use of theory in
IS articles appears to be increasing (although IS theory
is not widely used outside the IS and librarianship
domains).
Some authors, such as Ingwersen, clearly identify
that IS has produced ‘research results and theories of
its own’ [11, p. 3], even though this might involve some
reliance on theories from other fields. This leads into
the issue of whether it matters that IS has borrowed
and adapted theory from other disciplines.
3.4. IS: applied or pure discipline?
We knew that many writers in information science had
guilt feelings about the fact that this discipline had neither
discovered new laws nor invented new theories and
therefore did not deserve recognition as a science. Such
an inferiority complex is the result of indoctrination with
an outmoded philosophy of science, with persuasive
(propagandist) definitions of science and scientific
method [2, p. 13].
A number of authors state explicitly that IS is an
applied discipline (e.g. Meadows [1]; Summers et
al. [39]). Authors such as Bottle [43] and Hjørland
and Albrechtsen [12] identify IS as a social science,
and therefore seem to be also categorizing it as
applied. In fact this categorization would seem to be
pretty obvious (referring back to Table 2), given, for
example:
. the real-world problem-solving focus of core
specialisms in IS (e.g. information retrieval, information behaviour), with disputes about which
research problems are most important. The
research agenda is often driven by non-academic
interests (professional associations, practitioners,
governments who want ‘useful’ research), which
Becher and Trowler cite as a feature of soft-applied
subjects [26, p. 179];
318
.
.
.
.
the vocational nature of the majority of the
programmes offered by academic departments,
and the strong links between practitioners and
academics (Shera [44] saw IS as the research arm of
librarianship);
the fact that both quantitative and qualitative
research methods are used;
the extent to which IS is perceived to draw on other
disciplines’ theories (see further discussion,
below);
the fact that the outcomes of research often result in
know-how, products, techniques or protocols, and
may be subject to evaluation based on the outcomes’ perceived utility. From this perspective,
some of the agonizing about lack of theory and
consensus in IS seems misplaced. IS is clearly
displaying the characteristics of an applied discipline, one which has both hard and soft elements.
The agonizing itself can also be explained, though.
Becher and Trowler [26] describe the higher status
accorded to convergent, hard-pure disciplines, and
note that ‘there remains a common tendency for
practitioners in fields that are academically wellentrenched and established to look sideways at soft
applied researchers (those in public administration,
social work, education and the like) because their
disciplines are viewed as lacking in proper rigour’
[26, p. 193]. There is a natural tendency for
academics to want to see their work as contributing
to a high-status, secure domain, and this sometimes
results in attempts to ‘harden’ the discipline. In
particular, those who have entered IS from a hardpure background may be unsettled or dismayed to
find themselves in a discipline which may be
questioned and looked down upon.
3.5. The applied discipline and its field of application
This section sketches the relationship between academic and practitioner, and indicates the possible
impact of this relationship on the discipline.
Griffiths [45] cites Hargreaves’ characterization of
academic knowledge and practicing professional
knowledge (see Table 3).
In this categorization the Academic knowledge
category fits well with the description of a hard-pure
discipline, whilst the Practicing professional knowledge category has some characteristics of a soft-applied
or hard-applied discipline. When applied to IS, this
categorization is an exaggerated polarization, since, as
has already been discussed, IS can be characterized as
partly soft-pure and with few hard-pure elements.
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S. WEBBER
Table 3.
Academic and professional knowledge [45]
Academic knowledge
Practicing professional
knowledge
Generalized
Propositional in form
Context specific
Metaphorical, narrative,
story-based in form
Rational but also moral and
emotional
Interpersonal or private
Oral
Tacit
Practical
Rational
Public
Written
Explicit
Theoretical
However, Hargreaves may well be presenting a practitioner perception of academic IS. Some academics may
also polarize for effect: for example Summers et al. [39]
in posing the question ‘is information science a
science, or simply a practitioner’s craft?’ [39, p. 1154].
I have suggested in Table 4 an even more polarized
view of the two domains, as one that is, unfortunately,
sometimes described by academics and practitioners in
warring mood.
Crowley [32] notes (and bemoans) the split between
practitioners and academics ‘At times the disconnection between the requirements of higher education and
the demands of practice seems to constitute a void
beyond bridging’ (p. 1131). This disconnection is seen
by him as being related to a tension between the library
science ‘subworld’ and the IS ‘subworld’. It is certainly
an observable tension in the UK, manifesting itself, for
example, in debates about whether information departments are meeting the needs of practitioner-employers.
Hornby [46] also observes that some academics in a
Table 4.
Academic and professional knowledge: a pejorative view
Academics and academic
knowledge (viewed by
practitioners)
Professionals and practicing
professional knowledge
(viewed by academics)
Formal, artificial
Written unintelligebly in
obscure journals
Takes ages to document or
publish, by which time is no
longer of interest
Impractical, out of touch
Subjective, lacking in rigour
Anecdotal, partial,
superficial
Easily lost, undocumented
Practical, suspicious of
theory
survey she undertook at her (UK) institution experienced a tension between the needs of the profession
and more theoretical concerns, with academics prioritizing the professional needs (so that practitioners
could see the value of research and the relevance of
teaching).
After exploring the nature of IS, Summers et al.
return to the practitioner issue, presenting findings
that show that the practitioners tend to use theories
from other disciplines (such as management and
sociology) which, Summers et al. suggest, indicates
that IS as a discipline ‘has little relevance to the needs
of practitioners’ [39, p. 1159]. This leaves it in rather a
sorry state if it turns out it was ‘simply a practitioner’s
craft’ to start with.
It would be easy for IS to lose out in two ways.
Firstly, IS teachers could be driven by practitioner
concerns into neglecting theory in the IS curriculum.
Wersig [23] contrasts solutions which arise from
practitioner reflection and experience with solutions
that arise from researching underlying problems and
developing theories that enable alternative solutions to
be designed. A domain needs to engage with problems
and solutions at this second level, and also needs to
train up new researchers through IS courses. Secondly,
IS researchers could perhaps be failing to capitalize
fully on practitioner contributions to the knowledge
base of IS. Rossiter [35], discussing the marketing
knowledge base, identifies conditional principles
(hypothesized causal models) discovered by practitioners as part of this knowledge base, noting that for
reasons such as commercial confidentiality, these may
not be publicised. However, librarians and information
scientists, at least in the public sector, are less
concerned about confidentiality. Hannabuss’ [47] discussion of ‘street knowledge’ and ‘academic knowledge’ is interesting in this context.
3.6. The tension between hard and soft
Earlier writers on IS tended to express their ambitions
in hard-discipline terms. In Farradane [10, p. 77] states
clearly that IS should aspire to being a science, and
must therefore ‘develop a basis of experimentally
validated theory which will predict the practical
observations, and must provide a basis of growing
understanding of the phenomena in the field studied.’
Schrader cites Tague in 1979 who refers to IS’s
‘essential nature – analytical, technological, quantitative, research-based’ [28, p. 246]. Some later authors
also express a view of the discipline that is definitely
hard, if implying applied as well as pure specialisms.
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Information science in 2003
For example, Stonier [3] discusses the need for a theory
of information, and poses specific research questions,
all of which are quantitative in nature (e.g. ‘How much
information is contained within a steam engine?’),
although he also sees the need to identify value
(answering the ‘so what?’ question).
Meadows [1, p. 9], following Griffith, characterizes
information as ‘soft’ and contrasts it with hard sciences
‘where it is expected that the phenomena can be
described in mathematical form and that a consensus
view of problems will emerge fairly quickly.’ Increasingly it has become common for IS authors to identify
what could be categorized as both hard-applied and
soft-applied specialisms within IS. Ingwersen [11]
identifies two key trends: towards communication
theory and towards computer science. White and
McCain’s much-cited Author Co-citation Analysis
study [14] produced maps of key authors in three
time periods (1972–1979, 1980–1987, 1988–1995).
Amongst other findings, White and McCain note the
clear division between groups of authors in different
fields of IS (e.g. ‘the experimental retrieval group’; ‘the
user theory group’) some of which could be split along
hard/soft lines. They identify the increasing significance of the cognitive approach to IS.
The mix of hard- and soft-applied specialisms, and
the tensions caused when a specialist from a hard
discipline moves into the softer discipline of IS, is seen
by some as a problem, and by others as an opportunity.
In 1983 Shera [44] sees IS as ‘still largely an
agglomeration of technologies drawn from other areas
of study.’ In Summers et al. [39] are concerned that the
theoretical base of IS may comprise ‘a set of mostly
unrelated theories’ [p. 1155] and feel that this set might
be harmonized by overarching IS theory (which might
be developed in the future). Cornelius, in the conclusion to his review on IS theory, notes an apparent
tension between practice and aspiration of IS researchers. ‘It may simply be a feature of the practice of
information science that we need to express our regret
at the absence of grand theory of information, but are
content to operate at the level of our own isolated
technical problems’ [41, p. 420].
Such isolation is not perceived as inevitable.
Ingwersen [11, p. 6] points to examples of research
cooperation between the two camps, although he does
identify the split as a barrier to disciplinary consensus.
Meadows [1] notes how writers such as Griffith have
seen this as a problem, although Meadows himself sees
this conflict of hard and soft as beneficial, bringing
increased rigour and a fresh approach. Summers et
al. [39] identify the hard and soft specialisms in IS
320
(with explicit reference to Biglan’s typology). Making
an analogy with the field of psychology, they suggest
that it should be possible to make links between the
hard and soft sides, and they conclude that a mixture
of quantitative and qualitative methods are likely to be
needed in order to resolve substantial issues in IS.
They note that the increased blurring of the boundaries
between disciplines also calls for multidimentional
methodological approaches.
Ellis et al. [48] cite Diesing’s work on academic
disciplines. He saw conflict between subdisciplines as
essential to healthy development, although some
unifying element (such as the influence of ‘tribal
elders’) was needed. Ford [31] takes the discussion
further, identifying discussing alternative research
approaches to IS. He suggests that these differences
can be associated with different cognitive styles, and
proposes a model of the research process which
contains both an ‘Analytic thinking’ perspective (one
that might be labelled hard-pure and which Ford
associates with ‘left brain’ thinking) and a ‘Global
Thinking’ perspective (one that might be identified as
soft-applied, associated by Ford with ‘right brain’
thinking). Ford argues for integration of qualitative
and quantitative approaches, as a failure to consider
complementary or antithetical viewpoints is potentially limiting.
Therefore, there are those who can see a way forward
without a Grand Unifying Theory of IS. These authors
propose interweaving links between IS theories and
methods that will pull the discipline together more
firmly. Wersig puts forward IS as a new kind of science
for the future, and proposes building on the interdisciplinary nature of IS
What one hopes is that the reformulated broad models and
the interconcepts being dealt with rather independently
from each other from time to time would be interwoven by
individuals or teams, that the loose ends of models and
inter-concepts to be found in the different disciplines
would be knotted together. Into such a proto-network of
basic concepts of IS, then, other individuals may interweave other loose ends, thus making the network more
comprehensive and tighter in order to increase its
scientific safe-load . . . Thus perhaps the weaving bird
may become the symbol of information science theory [23,
p. 238].
Other IS writers use weaving and sewing metaphors.
Buckland [24, p. 974] sees the professional association
ASIST as being distinctive ‘in its ability to combine
multiple strands in an integrative way.’ Newell [25]
identifies the ‘crazy quilt’ that might be formed of
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S. WEBBER
idiosyncratic individual researchers and which has
more harmony when viewed as a whole.
Similar images are used by authors cited by Becher
and Trowler [26, p. 65] to describe the way in which
specialisms within a discipline (not specifically IS)
might interrelate: Polanyi envisages ‘the whole of
science [as] covered by chains and networks of overlapping neighbourhoods . . . the consensual chains
which link [each individual] to all the others’ and
Crane sees specialist fields interlocking in a honeycomb structure.
3.7. One discipline or ‘information sciences’
One issue which has been debated is whether IS is one
discipline, albeit with many specialisms, or whether
there are many IS disciplines. Machlup and Mansfield’s
aim in the volume Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages [49] (published shortly after Machlup’s death) was to foster dialogue and understanding
between researchers in a very wide variety of disciplines concerned with information. However, they
find the definition of IS problematic, and propose a
disciplinary area ‘the information sciences’ which like
the ‘social sciences’ would require ‘no single paradigm,
no overarching scientific research program, no common
fundamental postulates and axioms, no unified conceptual framework’ [2, p. 20]. Machlup and Mansfield
believed that if the title ‘information science’ (rather
than sciences) was persisted with, then the field would
not gain cohesion, and that individual areas (such as
human–computer interaction) would splinter off with
their own identifying titles. Seventeen years later,
Griffiths [45], a Past President of ASIST, agrees with
this approach, identifying ‘disciplines of information’
(for example bibliometrics, linguistics, library science)
each with its own distinct culture and jargon. The
question of whether adopting an ‘Information Sciences’
approach is a feasible solution will be picked up later in
this article, when discussing departmental and course
titles in the UK.
The fields (nearly 40 of them) in which Machlup and
Mansfield identified a strategic role for information
include areas such as psycholinguistics, game theory,
cognitive science, robotics, decision theory, some of
which IS authors might see as bordering or overlapping
IS rather than being part of it. The relationship
between IS and bordering disciplines is illustrated,
for example, by Ingwersen [11, p. 8], Summers et al.
[39, p. 1159], and Hawkins [50], the latter with a map
in part derived from previous studies. Each illustration
is slightly different, although some subjects (e.g.
computer science and psychology) recur. White and
McCain’s study [14] indicates a shift of research
interests in IS over time, but a number of other factors
might account for differences in delineating the field,
and it is outside the scope of this article to investigate
them.
Becher and Trowler [26] note that disciplines may be
convergent (tightly knit with clear and defendable
boundaries) or divergent, with more ill-defined border
zones, which are consequently more difficult to
defend. This is partly because academics at the border
may start to identify with the bordering discipline and,
so to speak, go over to the other side. They also note,
though, that, even in the areas of overlap between
disciplines, there may be a clear difference between
the research approaches (context and methods)
adopted when people from different disciplines tackle
what is ostensibly the same problem. These distinctions of research approach mean that a boundary may
be sharper than it first appears. Meadows [1, p. 2]
observes that fuzzy boundaries are a characteristic of
applied disciplines (such as medicine and dentistry)
and therefore does not find it unusual or problematic
for IS.
The divergent nature of IS is seen positively, e.g. by
Kraft [51], then President of ASIST, who believed that
‘one of the great strengths of ASIST is its openness to
new ideas in many, many different disciplines.’
Cronin [15] also welcomes opportunities to explore
new areas of research and application. Summers et al.
[39] advocate an adaptive and integrative strategy as
regards disciplinary boundaries, but identify the
threat of strong competition for occupation of the
more attractive borders. Warner [19] discusses this
threat, and Wilson [52] analyses a sample of papers
from a library and information conference in terms of
their engagement with technology and according to
‘generality’: whether the problem they deal with is a
specific concern of the library and information field,
or whether other disciplines are tackling it. Where
there is interest from other disciplines, he identifies
the topic as one of high competition, with the greatest
competition (e.g. in terms of fighting for research
grants) being in topics with high technology (e.g.
Information Retrieval).
It is worth noting that in UK higher education the
supremecy of ‘the discipline’ is being questioned
[58], with multidisciplinarity seen as a way of
stimulating creativity. Since a single IS department
could be seen as a multidisciplinary collaboratory all
by itself, this ought to mark IS out as a discipline
for the future.
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3.8. IS as an international discipline
There is evidence that IS is an international discipline.
There is international participation at key conferences
(such as the ASIST annual meeting and the London
Online meeting), and international research collaboration takes places in core specialisms of IS such as
information retrieval and information seeking.
Lipetz’ [53] analysis of a sample of JASIST volumes
shows a growing number of authors from outside the
USA (almost 30% in 1995). Lipetz [53] concludes that,
on the basis of this study, IS is ‘a developing discipline
with an exponentially expanding literature’ [p. 1002].
Koehler [54] undertakes a bibliometric analysis of
articles in JASIST and its predecessor American
Documentation, and identifies increasing complexity
of approach in the literature, including a wider range
of authors. White and McCain’s [14] ‘canonical
authors’ include information scientists from a number
of different countries, including the UK. Bonnevie’s
[55] analysis of articles in the Journal of Information
Science identified authors from 66 countries in 1098
documents. From 1987 to 2001 European authors
produced 70% of the items, with about 12% written
by North American authors and nearly 10% by those
from Asia-Pacific countries.
It should have become clear to the reader that my
view is that there is a discipline of IS, even if it has not
developed in quite the way its founders wanted or
expected. When viewed as an applied discipline, its
continuing reliance on other disciplines for part of its
theoretical base is not problematic. There is evidence
in the literature that there are distinct IS specialisms,
which have developed their own theory (e.g. information seeking), and studies of the literature demonstrate
that Newell’s [25] ‘interreading population’ exists,
even if they are not all the ‘scientists’ that Newell
might have wanted. In the second part of this article,
the UK situation will be focused on, and in particular
the remaining indicators for a discipline that were
listed in Section 3.1 will be examined.
4. IS in the UK at the start of the twenty-first
century
The nature and basis of the discipline have been
discussed in the preceeding sections, as has the
relationship between academics and practitioners.
This final part of the article provides a discussion of
the extent to which the other indicators of a discipline
might be manifest, with particular reference to the UK.
322
To recap, these indicators concern: the emergence of
an international community, with its own language
and ‘idols’; professional associations and journals; the
existence of departments and their place in the
university structure, together with consensus on a
curriculum; graduate students and a research culture;
popular texts; and identification with the discipline.
For those who would like alternative perspectives
from the UK on IS and its possible future, Warner [19]
identifies and analyses strong challenges to IS and IS
departments, and Summers et al. [39] provide a
thoughtful summary of key issues up to 1999, and
suggest an agenda for the future of IS. Readers who
wish to learn more about the development of library
and information education in the UK are referred to
Webber [56] for a concise overview of the situation in
2001, and to Elkin and Wilson [57] for a more in depth
treatment. Becher and Trowler [26] identify developments in UK higher education that are influencing
academic disciplines, and some perspectives on
knowledge and the university in the UK are summarized by Barnett [58].
4.1. A UK community of IS?
The IS community will be discussed using the
concepts of communities of practice (COP), and
networks of practice (NOP), since they provide a
framework
for
examining
its
characteristics.
Wenger [59] identifies practice as ‘a process by which
we can experience the world and our engagement with
it as meaningful’ (p. 51). He describes three dimensions by which practice defines a community:
. mutual engagement, for example, doing things
together, maintenance, complementary diversity
strengthening the community;
. a joint enterprise, for example, negotiated enterprise, mutual accountability;
. a shared repetoire, for example, stories, artefacts,
styles, actions, historical events, discourses, concepts.
Brown and Duguid [60] characterize COPs as consisting of people who know each other well face-to-face and
work together collaboratively. This is contrasted with a
NOP where information is shared, but there is relatively
little interaction and collaboration. In an NOP, communication may well be via third party, or remote
distribution medium (such as discussion lists). For
both a COP and NOP there is a shared world, but the
COP world is richer and more developed socially.
Referring to the academic environment Brown and
Duguid [60] seem to imply that an disciplinary
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S. WEBBER
specialism is an NOP, with COPs formed by those
educated in specific institutions ‘in networks of scholars, for example, while all may be from one field, it’s
often easy to guess who trained together in a particular
lab or school by their style or approach’ [60, p. 143].
However, I would suggest that the discipline of IS is
at least an NOP. As indicated earlier, the history of IS
is being reclaimed. There is an ASIST Special Interest
Group on History and Foundations in Information
Science, and meetings on the history of IS have taken
place. Members are identifying past contributions to
their world, rediscovering both IS ‘heroes’ and ideas
which they can apply to current situations. The Origins
of Information Science volume [61] demonstrates a UK
interest in IS history, but this was published in 1987
and, despite the occasional article addressing historical aspects by authors such as Warner [62], there is not
currently as much interest in the history of IS in the UK
as in the USA.
Discussion in the IS NOP takes place through
channels such as the Journal of the American Society
for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), the
Bulletin and discussion list (asis-l) of ASIST, and the
Journal of Documentation. There is shared jargon, and
a shared perspective on the importance of the
discipline, even though sharp debate may take place
on certain issues. Bates [63] sees a sense of humour as
being a characteristic of IS, citing the SIG-CON ‘spoof
lecture’ sessions at the ASIST conferences as evidence.
Humour, including satirizing shared objects of disdain,
and poking fun at one’s own kind, can be an important
part of the socialization process. In the USA, ASIST
and its members work at maintaining the NOP through
conferences. In the past decade the international
Conceptions of Library and Information Science
(COLIS) conferences have also provided a forum to
develop the discipline through discussion (see e.g.
Vakkari and Cronin [64]). ASIST encourages those in
similar jobs, with similar interests or in similar
geographical locations to meet and communicate (via
Branches and special interest Groups, as well as
participation in central committees). Thus Communities of Practice are also fostered, as will be discussed
shortly. COPs might be observed in geographical areas,
for example, where a Branch committee of a professional association:
. meets regularly, and maintains contact outside
meetings;
. works on shared tasks such as developing good
professional practice and organizing events;
. negotiates roles and recognizes different contributions;
provides mutual advice and support as regards
practice in people’s place of work;
. mentors new members;
. strives to keep the association alive and meeting its
goals.
The Special Interest Group Information Retrieval
(ACM/SIG-IR) seems to me an example of a COP.
There is a shared jargon, shared concerns, and shared
history of IR. It is a competitive area, but there is
encouragement of young researchers, and collaboration to organize meetings and to maintain the
ongoing TREC project, as well as international
collaboration on specific research projects. Members
meet face to face to exchange information and deal
with tasks, and there is also sharing of information
and opinion via discussion lists, journals and web
pages. I have heard SIG-IR members talk about the
SIG as a ‘family’.
ASIST has already been mentioned as an American
professional association for IS which fosters community. The UK’s Institute of Information Scientists (IIS)
was founded in 1958, 10 years before the American
Documentation Institute changed its name to the
American Society for Information Science (see the
timeline in Scrader [28]). However, it will be well
known to many readers of this journal that the IIS is
now an ex-Institute, merged with the Library Association in 2002 to form the Chartered Institute of
Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). A
history of the merger is outside the scope of this
article. Although the merger was seen as necessary,
both in order to provide the profession with a
coherent voice when speaking with Government and
the wider community, and to keep financially
solvent, the loss of a separate IIS has to be regarded
as a loss for the discipline.
I was heavily involved in the IIS for over 15 years,
until the merger in 2002. During that time I certainly
experienced it as an NOP, leading me into COPs
focused on specific tasks and specialisms. We worked
together to keep the IIS going at various levels and had
our own IIS culture, language, style, channels of
communication, rewards and sense of humour (the
Infotainers being SIG-CON performed by Monty
Python manqués in the British pantomime tradition).
Any visibly active IIS member who moved to a
different part of the country was welcomed as a friend
and (unless they resisted stoutly) coopted onto the
local committee. There was participation from members in different sectors: information consultants;
information scientists and managers in industry, and
academics. The IIS had 2300 members, of whom about
.
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Information science in 2003
10% were actively involved: rather a good size for an
NOP, but unfortunately not a good size at all for
keeping a professional association fully functioning
and financially viable.
I have to admit to some sentimentality in my review
of the IIS, and even before the IIS ceased to exist, some
areas of activity had declined. Whereas ASIST still has
a well-attended Annual meeting, the IIS annual
conferences ceased in the 1990s. The Online meeting,
held in London each December for over 20 years, has
assumed a more commercial and practical focus,
although it is still a key place to meet with other
information scientists. Inform, the newsletter of the
IIS, and the lis-iis discussion list ceased at the same
time as the IIS. The Journal of Information Science (JIS,
the IIS’ journal) is obviously still published. However,
it is not so widely circulated in print form. Every IIS
member used to received a copy, since royalty
agreements with the publisher meant that the IIS had
to pay very little for them. Although many members
claimed not to read JIS, it is still likely that having it
thrust through their letterboxes every month lured
some practitioners to read about research, and perhaps
contribute articles, and it encouraged researchers to
keep up to date. Although there is CILIP member
access to the electronic version of JIS, only those who
are keen readers will bother to seek out the site
regularly. It also has to be said that there has of late
been more extended and frequent debate on the
discipline via the pages of JASIST and Journal of
Documentation than in JIS.
UK authors are, as noted above, publishing in IS
journals and are visible internationally. Although
Wilson [52] noted a lack of research communities in
UK, this current issue of JIS demonstrates engagement with core specialisms in IS (Information
Retrieval and information seeking) and with one of
the newer soft applied specialisms (Educational
Informatics). UK researchers are part of international
specialist communities like ACM/SIG-IR. It may be
true that UK-specific communities have not developed around each specialism, but there are issues of
critical mass and in-country competition which can
make European or International COPs more practicable. The new body, CILIP, encouragingly, has
support for library and information research on its
agenda. However, there is no Special Interest Group
or committee specifically concerned with research
and development of the discipline. The focus of
CILIP is primarily on the practitioner, and the role of
the practitioner and CILIP in the knowledge
economy [65].
324
4.2. Academic assessment: the RAE, the subject
benchmark, course accreditation
There are two particularly important forms of external
evaluation of all university departments in the UK:
assessment of teaching quality and the Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE). The outcomes of assessment affect funding levels, so these are serious
exercises. Course accreditation by professional bodies
is also considered important, although less so than in
the USA, since in the UK it is the individual who is
ultimately accredited (by becoming a Chartered member of CILIP). These three activities will be considered
in turn to look for evidence that IS is recognized as a
discipline.
The teaching quality exercise is described by
Broady-Preston [66] giving the assessor’s perspective,
and by Harrison [67], speaking for a department that
received a top quality rating (Loughborough University
Department of Information Science). The procedure is
now changing in some respects, but departments still
have to provide systematic evidence of quality teaching. All universities now have to take account of the
relevant Subject Benchmarks when profiling their
undergraduate courses. Published in 2000, the Benchmarks outline the nature and extent of each discipline,
core knowledge and skills, appropriate transferable
skills, and modes of learning, teaching and assessment.
The title of the Subject Benchmark in our area is
Librarianship and Information Management (LIM) [68]
and it was drawn up by a group of academics,
coordinated by the LA and with periods of consultation from the wider community [69].
The Benchmark’s definition of LIM is similar to
many of IS: LIM ‘encompasses the study of information, from its generation to its exploitation, so as to
enable the recording, accumulation, storage, organization, retrieval and transmission of information, ideas
and works of imagination . . . articulated through the
medium of librarianship, information science, archives
administration and records management, the subject
area has expanded to cover the theory and practice of
librarianship and information management in a broad
range of environments’ [68, p. 1]. This is not the place
for a thorough critique of what had to be a pragmatic
document against which a disparate range of courses
could be mapped. Huckle’s [69] detailed account of the
process by which the Benchmark was drawn up
indicates the difficulties, as well as the relatively tight
timescale. However, it is a pity that, with at least two
well-documented disciplines to command, there had
to be compromise on the cobbled-together ‘LIM’,
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especially as the document refers to students understanding core elements of ‘the discipline’.
Accreditation by professional bodies is also important in attracting students, since it is a quality
indicator, and people who have taken accredited
courses can obtain full membership of their professional association more quickly. As an accrediting
body, the IIS was in a stronger position than ASIST,
which does not have an accreditation function. The
criteria now used by CILIP are, with little revision,
those which were developed for joint accreditation
visits by the IIS and the LA a few years before the
merger of the two bodies [70]. The main categories and
scope notes are almost identical to the Criteria for
Information Science (see Table 1). They include
‘Principles of library and information science’ as a
core area to be covered in curricula. I would refer at
this point to my earlier discussion, in Section 3.4, of
academic – practitioner tensions. There is a positive
dialogue between UK practitioners and UK academics,
but differences of opinion about what should be taught
emerge in informal discussion and through more
formal debate in professional journals and professional
events.
Turning to research, the RAE is carried out by 61
subject panels of peers in the disciplines concerned.
They consider submissions from each department, and
award a grade ranging from 1 (the worst) to 5* (the best).
Library and Information Management is the title of our
research assessment category. Elkin [71], who chaired
the 2001 panel, provides an account of the RAE
Exercise. As well as describing the process, she notes
some of the panel’s overall conclusions for the 2001
RAE. She points to overall improvement in research
quality, but also observes that there some departments
put forward academics with little research output, and
she concludes that ‘The discipline still appears to lack
the maturity and confidence, compared with other
more traditional disciplines, to lose this ‘‘tail’’’ [71,
p. 206]. She also identifies a lack of research strategy
in some departments and in some cases ‘a worrying
complacency’. Elkin reports that the Library and
Information Management panel felt that they had a
‘workable description’ for the area being assessed, and
notes that submissions in information systems seemed
to fit comfortably within it. Writing about an earlier
RAE exercise, Enser [75] had noted the confusion as
regards the research assessment categories, with some
subjects that would be seen as part of IS being listed as
topics for Computer Science, for example.
Thus, research in information departments in UK
universities has received endorsement, in that there
was enough research going on, to a sufficiently high
standard, that an external panel felt able to award high
gradings to a reasonable number of departments,
although only two (Sheffield University Department
of Information Studies, and Salford University’s
Information Systems Institute) received a 5* rating in
the 2001 RAE exercise. The issue of the ‘discipline’
that is being focused on in these exercises will be
addressed the end of the following section.
4.3. Academic departments, their place within the
university, and the courses they offer
A comparison of current department titles with those
listed in Enser [72] and Hornby [46] shows changes in
terminology. Only three out of 15 departments still
have the same title as they did in 1995 (those in City
University, Sheffield University and University College London). Seven out of 15 departments have
merged with, or been absorbed into, larger groupings.
Ellis et al. [48] suggested in 1999 that power struggles
rather than disciplinary differences held Information
Systems and IS apart. Two departments appear to have
followed the logic of this, with those at Strathclyde
University and Brighton University both merging with
Computer Science departments between 1999 and
2003, to form respectively the Departments of Computing and Information Sciences and The School of
Computing, Mathematical and Information Sciences
(other mergers involve business and communication
studies). In 1995 seven departments had some variant
of the word ‘Library’ in their title; this has now been
reduced to two. IS has become more prominent; in
1995 there were two departments (City and Strathclyde) called ‘information science’. In the interim, the
Strathclyde and Brighton departments have merged, as
noted above, and Loughborough University has changed the name of its department from Information and
Library Studies to Information Science. However, this
terminological change has not had an impact on course
titles.
In course names, Information Management is the
phrase in the ascendant. This is most obvious when
looking at UK undergraduate course titles. Students
apply for these courses through the central University
and Colleges Admission System (UCAS) [73]. ‘Information Science’ is a category in the UCAS catalogue,
listing 74 courses. Of these, a few seem misclassified
(e.g. a course entitled ‘Public Relations’), there are half
a dozen duplicate entries, and another half dozen
obviously only deal with technical systems. Ironically,
it is one of the these, ‘Engineering: Electrical and
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Information science in 2003
Information Sciences’, which is the only course to
mention IS. None of the other courses use this phrase.
‘Information management’ is in the title of 38 courses.
There are 18 course titles using the word ‘studies’, e.g.
‘Information Studies’, ‘Information and Library Studies’. Of the 56 courses mentioning information
management or studies, 45 are dual degrees with a
subject obviously outside the discipline, e.g. ‘Information Management and Business Studies’ (the most
popular combination). These figures cannot be taken
too exactly, since there are differences as regards what
is listed (e.g. Aberystwyth lists a large number of dual
degree combinations, Queen Margaret University College simply lists one entry ‘Joint degrees – Information
Management’) and sometimes there are multiple
entries for the same degree taken in different modes.
However, they indicate the trend.
If one turns to CILIP accredited Masters
programmes [74], the only institution to offer IS is
City University (the first university to run an IS
course [43]), with its MSc Information Science. Thus,
none of the other departments with IS in their titles run
explicitly IS courses.
Internal politics and marketing affect choices of
course and department names. Departments may wish
to choose names which sound attractive to potential
students, or which convey high status within the
context of their institution. Names of merged departments may end up as compromises, or reflect pragmatic concerns (e.g. one can easily understand why
Strathclyde did not put the word ‘information’ before
the word ‘computing’, since this would have given
them the unfortunate departmental acronym DICS).
Given the ‘computing and information sciences’
mergers that have taken place, Machlup and Mansfield’s idea of a faculty of ‘Information Sciences’ might
be attractive in some institutions. However, from a
marketing point of view it is unlikely to be achieved,
given that students may not readily identify the
subjects it covers, and that other departments would
resent having their own disciplinary names dropped
and IS retained. Departments may be caught up in the
wider university politics, for example the formation of
the Aberdeen Business School (including the information department) at Robert Gordon University when a
merger with Aberdeen University was being proposed.
The multidisciplinary nature of IS has resulted in
departments being situated in a variety of faculties [75],
and there have been some shifts between faculties, e.g.
the Strathclyde move from Business to Science.
Some differences in how departments are handled
may be accounted for by the departments’ differing
326
specialist strengths. Pfeffer’s [33] argument that strong
paradigm development in a discipline correlates with
certain good things such as getting research grants, and
increased institutional status and funding is relevant
here. It could be worth investigating further whether
engagement in the harder side of IS has correlated with
a more secure institutional position. Certainly it is of
note that two out of the three departments that had no
change of name between 1995 and 2003 had received 5
or 5* ratings in the RAE exercises, and the third is in a
strongly research-led university.
Overall, on the one hand, the fact that departments
are still in existence is encouraging and name changes
might give more anxiety to librarians than to information scientists. On the other hand, the fact that
universities are not sure where to place departments
structurally; and that some decisions seem a trifle
arbitrary, is unsettling. UK departments of IS and
library studies have not been subject to dramatic
closure, but as Warner [19] notes, they may be diffused
and absorbed to the point where IS research and
teaching effectively no longer takes place (Warner’s
own institution may be taken as an example).
I also see the complete lack of undergraduate IS
programmes as a problem. Fashion and social trends
have doubtless contributed to the popularity of
‘management’ and the unpopularity of ‘science’. The
pure sciences, and applied sciences other than computer science, are finding it hard to attract
students [26]. Also, an absence of IS in a course title
does not mean there is necessarily a lack of IS in the
course, and I have not undertaken an analysis of
information and library curricula to investigate this.
However, a lack of IS in course names is a possible
indicator that there may not be extensive (or any)
discussion of IS as a discipline in these courses. This
has become even more likely since the Subject Benchmark for the field refers to ‘Library and Information
Management’ as the discipline, and refers to IS only as
something through which LIM is ‘articulated’. Aside
from my own partiality for IS as a discipline, there at
least seems a more urgent need for the UK information
and library community to explore and map the nature
of the LIM ‘discipline’. This would help academics to
explain a course’s rationale and context, and reassure
students that they were part of (or learning to become
part of) a distinctive NOP. From my own experience, I
would say that whilst librarianship students can
readily identify an NOP, the increasing number of
information management students cannot.
All this has implications for doctoral students and
future teachers and researchers. If they have not
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received a grounding in the IS discipline, and are
unaware of it as an NOP, then they may be less likely to
contribute to the ‘stitching and weaving’ activities,
mentioned in Section 3.6, that can help develop the
discipline and its theoretical basis. The taught Masters
programmes in the UK are only one year in length,
with two semesters for the instructional portion and
one for the dissertation. The concentrated nature of the
Masters courses make undergraduate courses even
more important in the process of educating future
researchers, scholars, practitioners and citizens about
the discipline.
4.4. Textbooks, idols, artefacts and self
As has been noted, some information scientists see the
popular textbook as evidence of a successful discipline. In the UK, there are certainly no fat piles of
bestselling primers by acknowledged IS gurus to sit
beside Kotler’s marketing textbooks and the nth edition
of Samuelson’s Economics [76]. Similarly, information
scientists have not entered the bestseller lists with
popularizations of IS theory: the headline-grabbing
books about the internet have been written by those
from other disciplines. One reason for this lack could
be the disincentive for UK academic researchers to
write books: books in our field generally count for
nothing in the RAE. A peer-reviewed journal article is
more valuable in RAE terms, and is also quicker to
write. One might hypothesize other causes, for example, the traditionally modest outlook of the library and
information scientist, an information scientist’s preference for accuracy rather than generalization, or
(though surely not) a lack of exciting things to write
about.
Cronin and Shaw [77] investigate the ‘publicintellectual status’ of the 25 most frequently cited
US-based academics, based on citation count, web hits
and hits on LexisNexis. The authors note these
academics’ relative invisibility in the general media
(with the exception of Hal Varian who, as they point
out, had an active career as an economist before
heading the department at the University of California
at Berkeley). A similar exercise has not, to my knowledge, been carried out for UK academics, but I would
imagine the result to be similar, with a few figures
(such as Charles Oppenheim) penetrating the general
media in a modest fashion, but no-one likely to be
accosted for their autograph on the street.
Looking at the question of identity with the field, few
IS idols and artefacts come immediately to mind. Some
IIS Members and Fellows displayed their framed
certificates. Certainly the Infotainers have a sentimental attachment to their Infotainment T-shirts and audiocassettes. On a more scholarly note, Brown and
Duguid’s [60] observations on textual communities
also identify academic writings in journals etc. as
‘shared cultural objects’. Some academics may display
particular journals, books or conference proceedings to
signify allegiance to IS or a specialism within it.
Finally, I come to a question that emerged periodically at IIS gatherings: if someone at a party asks you
what you do, do you call yourself an information
scientist? This touches on the issue of personal
identification with the discipline and its profession.
This precise question was never the subject of a formal
survey, but I know that some IIS members clearly
identified themselves as information scientists (including on official documents); others (like myself) varied
their practice depending on who they were talking to,
and a further group identified themselves with a more
specific profession or employer. However, I would
suggest that it is decreasingly likely that people will
identify themselves as information scientists when
neither their professional association nor the course of
study they followed bear this name. There are still jobs
advertised for ‘information scientists’ (mostly for posts
in research-intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals), but they are outnumbered by vacancies for
information managers and librarians.
5. Conclusion
In the first part of this article IS was identified as a real
discipline (though not a hard-pure ‘science’) which is
pursuing a distinctive vision through a variety of
research methods appropriate to the interlinking, but
various, research problems in the field. IS has a
growing body of literature and an international community of researchers.
However, the second half of the paper shows that
there are challenges to the discipline in the UK.
Academic departments are active in research, and
key IS specialisms thrive. However, the phrase ‘information science’ is not being used by the main UK
professional association, nor by most academic departments. Debate about the discipline itself has in any
case been increasingly less vigorous amongst UK
information scientists. Whilst it could be argued that
participation in international debate is more important
for the overall growth of the discipline, one would also
hope for engagement at a national level. Without
teaching and debate at a departmental and national
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Information science in 2003
level, it is more difficult to envisage a new generation
of researchers who see IS as their discipline. Attention
needs to be paid to this ‘Library and Information
Management’: is it merely an umbrella term and
administrative convenience? Is it a new name for IS?
Is it a different discipline? If the latter, it needs more
serious examination and exploration. ‘Information
Management’ is also in such widespread use for course
titles that it deserves more attention (in terms of
examining its status and boundaries) in the information science journals.
There are several areas that merit further research,
for example:
. whether the principles, key authors, history and
theories of IS are covered in course curricula;
. more detailed analysis of UK academics engagement in the discipline through different channels
and media;
. the extent to which academics, students and
practitioners identify with IS and the extent to
which they see themselves as information scientists.
Through the process of writing this article, the
author’s own conviction that IS is a valid and
important discipline has been strengthened. Although
without a unifying grand theory, it provides a
distinctive perspective on research problems, and on
practice. It seems vital that those engaged in its
specialisms continue to see their endeavours as part
of an interconnected whole, so that together they can
work to bring about the vision that the pioneers of
information science mapped out, a vision that still
inspires in the twenty-first century.
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